HD And Not HD

[Ghogiel]

non sense.

[xaliqen]

I think part of the problem is some people are mistaking HD for a technical term when it's really a marketing term. HD is a term used by electronics companies to sell more televisions. If you want to use more precise language, talk about texture dimensions or screen resolution. "HD" doesn't really mean much of anything. Edited December 5, 2011 by xaliqen

[Matth85]

TIp: Never increase the size of a texture. It does not look good unless you spend the next week fixing it.

Instead: Re-create it. No, a tone texture is not hard to find. Neither is a wood one. You got a reference, and you got the normal map. Get a cavity map out, and bazinga: You don't have to re-texture everything.

 

Being lazy have never been an excuse for anything!

[Rennn]

(@xaliqen) HD means high definition. This is generally accepted in the texture modding world to be anything over 1024x1024, or, for people buying overpriced TVs, anything over 720p diagonally. A much better level of detail is 2048x2048, but quite a few people actually have enough VRAM to push it to 4096x4096, and beyond that, I don't think any monitor in the world will show a noticeable difference.

 

The biggest problem with the new textures is that they never match smoothly when blending with the other textures, even from the same author. I'm going to wait until a big name like Qarl gets into it in a few months and we get a cohesive, artistic texture pack.

 

I'm planning on making Skyrim look like Killzone 3 :)

(How a console manages that game so smoothly with 256MB VRAM, I may never know)

Edited December 5, 2011 by Rennn

[xaliqen]

TIp: Never increase the size of a texture. It does not look good unless you spend the next week fixing it.

Instead: Re-create it. No, a tone texture is not hard to find. Neither is a wood one. You got a reference, and you got the normal map. Get a cavity map out, and bazinga: You don't have to re-texture everything.

 

Being lazy have never been an excuse for anything!

 

I agree with this 100%.

 

Though, knowing which sources have base files you can modify and redistribute can be tricky at times, and also following all the rules of redistribution if it's under a specific license can be difficult to understand at first. Still, there's usually documentation about the licenses, and it doesn't take long to understand their various rules.

Edited December 5, 2011 by xaliqen

[darthsloth74]

TIp: Never increase the size of a texture. It does not look good unless you spend the next week fixing it.

Instead: Re-create it. No, a tone texture is not hard to find. Neither is a wood one. You got a reference, and you got the normal map. Get a cavity map out, and bazinga: You don't have to re-texture everything.

 

Being lazy have never been an excuse for anything!

 

I agree with this 100%.

 

Though, knowing which sources have base files you can modify and redistribute can be tricky at times, and also following all the rules of redistribution if it's under a specific license can be difficult to understand at first. Still, there's usually documentation about the licenses, and it doesn't take long to understand their various rules.

 

I agree with both of these comments. I try not to fall into lazy habits but in some cases some of the original texture can be used for overlay/multiply/hue purposes, the trick is to use it at a very low opacity although most of the time it really isn't worth the extra effort of cleaning up the enlarged original with its compression artifacts etc. Far better to start again from scratch really.

[Matth85]

Though, knowing which sources have base files you can modify and redistribute can be tricky at times, and also following all the rules of redistribution if it's under a specific license can be difficult to understand at first. Still, there's usually documentation about the licenses, and it doesn't take long to understand their various rules.

 

Cgtextures.com got enough base textures to last a lifetime. 3Dtotal got about 13 DvDs with textures you can buy.

Really, any half-serious texture artist should know of these stuff, or got a good HD camera and know the concept of taking a good picture, without lights bouncing up and down everywhere.

 

That said, any picture could be used to make a HD texture. Heck, I could probably refine a 512x512 to look like 2048x2048 by tiling it and fitting it. However, by that time I might aswell model the model froms scratch, into Zbrush, bake a normal and texture it. SImply finding a good base texture, desaturate it, and work with that, with the help of a cavity map from the Normals map, it a fast way to get a good texture.

 

Besides, anybody can go "I scaled texture X to 2048x2048 from 1024x1024 and used a sharpen filter! It is now HD!!". You actually need some kind of skill to actually RE-texture something to HD, and make it look good.

 

I just hope our newest modders could learn this simlple sentence: Being lazy is not an excuse for anything, anywhere, for any reason.

 

Trying not to come out as rude here :) But I too am feeling tired of the constant upscaling of images. There are 2 golden rules within 3d/game modelling:

1) Always use reference.

2) Never upscale a texture.

 

Breaking them is like breaking a leg for me. It hurts me on the inside :(

 

Cheers,

Matth

 

EDIT: I can't spell. At all. :wallbash:

Edited December 5, 2011 by Matth85

[MonsterMonkey]

@MonsterMonkey

Well there is an excellent light and shade mod out there using the ENB as a base. It's called Skyrim Enhanced Shaders and it works like a charm. Unlike the FXAA, there is minimal FPS impact if none at all and lights actually matter.

 

I was one of the first to down it and endorse , i made several tries and came to have darker nights without that stoopid desaturation, and bright days with great realistic colours here is how i set the (Coloration) block of the enbseries.ini if you wanna try it.

 

[colorCORRECTION]

DarkeningAmountDay=0

ScreenLevelDay=65

ScreenLevelNight=25

DarkeningAmountNight=15

GammaCurveDay=0

GammaCurveNight=2

ColorSaturationDay=0

ColorSaturationNight=4

UsePaletteTexture=0

 

There was a misunderstending , english is not my natural language (i'm sure you've notice) i never said that high res texture is useless it's good when it comes to things that you see from close like clothes, armors, weapons home objects etc for water and fire as an exemple hi res really matter, but have super hi res textures for tree leaves, grass, ash rock all these stuffs that you never really watch because you are runnin or fighting, in my opinion it's useless the ones ingame do there job to me, maybe some roads, or walls could be enhanced but some mods i've tried (roads walls, some clothes).didn't convinced me because of there lack of art skill (hope it's clear)

 

A question why is that people didn't tried to enhance vanilla armors with better glow maps or even reflections, i mean steel or iron are glowing in real life, is somebody had even the idea, that's just one idea i had but i've never really worked textures.

 

I think there are too many textures mod i'd like to see more models mod, shadow/lighting mods, image space ambient mods, but i'm sure there will be more of these with the CK.

Edited December 5, 2011 by MonsterMonkey

[Paultimate79]

@ xaliqen

 

No, HD is not a marketing term anymore than 'digital' is. HD means High Definition, and is defined at better 720 or better vertical line resolution at a ration of 16:10 or 16:9. (As Rennn explained)

 

@ Ghogiel

Nonsense is one word, bro.

 

@ Matth85

Agreed.

 

 

I don’t have much more to add right now. Im surprised by the maturity of this forum, or at least the people that responded. I got more intelligent responses than I thought id get. Thanks all for the input on this matter. It was a lot better than the response I got from one of the moderators here, which basically said ‘people can name their mods whatever BS they want, even if its blown up copyright art of Bethesda, we are too lazy to moderate that thx’. Not a step in the right direction for quality imo.

Edited December 7, 2011 by Paultimate79

[Paultimate79]

it's just a non sense label. Vanilla game is HD...I run at 1080p.

Skyrim is in HD, but the vanilla textures aren't.

Think minecraft, you can run that game in 1080p but the default textures are only 16x16 pixels.

when you have like 20 512 on your screen at one time, some of which are tiling 500 times, do the math. Unless you are constantly lookin at a single non tiled 512 texture the whole time...

 

It is completely irrelevant to call textures such, as on screen the game will only be mapping 1 texture pixel, which it gets by sampling, to the screen pixel.

 

So I could tile a 16x16 image texture 45 times and suddenly its magically HD? Tell me youre joking.

 

ONCE MORE FROM THE TOP I WILL PUT IT IN BOLD.

An (LCD) screen has a maximum (native) resolution. Typically in an HD category with a ratio 16:10 or 16:9 and typically 720 or higher (1080) vertical lines. This is called an HD capable screen. Games, regardless of texture can run at this size (but no higher due to the screens limitations). HOWEVER, you can stretch a 1x1 pixel to the size of a 1080 screen. Does this magically make the pixel HD? No. It means the screen is HD. The definition of the image you look at, and the screen you use to look at it ARE DIFFERENT THINGS. They are measured SEPARATELY to determine true HD.You NEED BOTH to be in HD to watch an HD movie. A capable screen, and the required native minimum (720) recorded horizontal resolution of the given movie (or texture) to be defined as HD.

Edited December 7, 2011 by Paultimate79